


The Fall of New Albion: A Pyrrhic Victory

by EndlessAdInfinitium



Category: Shaperaverse, The New Albion Radio Hour: A Dieselpunk Opera - Shapera
Genre: 'What if Lloyd succeeded with the whole epic tragedy thing', Angst, I thought, Listen the podcast makes me feel things okay, and then proceeded to not stop thinking about, this is just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndlessAdInfinitium/pseuds/EndlessAdInfinitium
Summary: In which Constance is unable to reverse the Voodoopunk's song and Lloyd gets his epic tragedy.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	The Fall of New Albion: A Pyrrhic Victory

“Dollay oh oh we come dollay…” 

Constance swayed quietly in the shadow of the fallen city. John had tried to pull her back, to stop her when it became apparent that it wasn’t working. He had thought if he could get her away in time, if he could just block out the soldier’s voice with his own he could save her. Instead he had watched with horror as the light in her eyes dimmed and her voice stuttered, until she too had been reduced to a mindless singing husk. And now there was nothing he could do, neither shouting nor pleading nor shaking could bring back his daughter from the thrall of the dead. 

“Constance? Constance please, you have to come back from this. You can’t- Jackie what do we do, how do we fix this?”

The policeman turned to face Jackie, who was looking at Constance with an expression drained of all color. The taller woman shook her head.

“I don’t know, the- the possession is too strong, I don’t know how to reverse it. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I’m so sorry.”

At these words John too turned slowly to face her, eyes narrowing into a glare. The weight of her words was like yet another bitter pill down his throat. For a few hours, just a few impossibly short hours he had had her, and it had seemed like there might be a future ahead with hope in it. A future where he could put aside the emptiness and bitter rage that had ruled so much of his life behind him, one where if he couldn’t live beside his daughter he would at least die protecting her. And now those possibilities were crumbling away like sand which slipped through his fingertips. John O’ Brien’s cybernetic fist clenched, that fiery rage which he had drawn upon time and time again igniting once more into an inferno as he loomed over Jacqueline.

“This plague is your doing!” He roared, “Yours and that damned cult’s, you did this to her!”

. . . . . . . 

“What Jacqueline O’Brien tried on the Blvd. of Cryers  
Well she tore the city’s citizens from their rightful minds  
The rebels over ran a defenseless Parliament  
But they were forced to flee when faced the destruction at hand

On Cryers Blvd that day, there were few who walked away  
After Constance fell John lost his will to face the coming days  
He turned his gun upon his dear sister who had caused  
The loss of every hopeful yearning- then himself, they both did fall 

Thomas walked and walked until one day he came upon  
A monastery in the mountains where he came at last to stop  
Alone sequestered away, it was here he chose to stay   
To never speak or talk again until his dying days

New Albion now stands a burned and broken monument  
A testament to the folly of the Voodoopunk’s doomed plan  
The fires that broke out, well there were none to put them out  
And so the city sang its song of death within the burning blaze

The Voodoopunks, my friends, they will not return again  
After the ruin they have wrought all towns refuse them entry in  
They’re persecuted, chased from every home they try to make  
With all knowledge of their rituals thoroughly erased

So again we bid adieu to our players and to you  
At hour’s end there’s nothing left for us to tune into  
And now we must part ways, the story ends upon this day  
As the city sits and smolders in a sorry state of decay.”

Lloyd Allen sat back in his chair, ending the broadcast with the click of a button. The room was silent, save for the creak of his wooden joints that the motion caused. 

Finally.

All of those broadcasts collecting mass psychic energy. Years of planning and plotting, editing and tweaking his script unto perfection. Until finally, finally it was showtime - and what a show it had been. There had been a few moments where things had veered close to off-course, Constance’s surprising sensitivity to the narrative which flowed around her chief cause among them. In another life the girl might have had what it took to become Posthuman- so close, yet when the decisive moment had come she had withered instead of flowered. 

But regardless of what the girl might have done, at the end of the day the narrative had danced in time to the direction of his waltz. And now at last he had completed it, his final and greatest triumph over this wretched, stinking pustule of a city. How dearly he had wished to see this narrative and everything in it reduced to ash, to visit such destruction upon it that that the violence of their civil war looked like a mere spat between children in comparison. And now the match had come to rest between his fingers.

It had been a beautiful tragedy, a bright red end to the ribbon which adorned this section of metaspace which would now forever mark his impact. It was a shame that he couldn’t look at it from the outside. But that was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? If he had been able to do that he would have been long gone aeons ago. But every door that should have been open stayed firmly shut, and every strategy formulated to get help had hit some hitch. The incompetence of his ‘allies’ had been insurmountable, and with each failure his hopes sunk further into despair as the prospect of escape grew further away. When he had at last come to terms with the impossibility of escape he had settled on a new goal: Retribution. Now that longtime goal had been achieved however, and there was really only one thing left to do.

. . . . . . . 

The door creaked open to a street covered in rubble and for the most part devoid of people. What few there were were present only in body, their minds entranced by the hypnotizing song which now echoed from every mouth in the city. So it was that Lloyd stepped out for the first time in many years with no disguise. There was no longer any need to hide behind skinsuits and heavy coats, he could now walk the streets openly with no fear of being seized and destroyed. And so the last lone doll wandered amongst the ruins of the city where its residents could not, making his way down into the Iron District.

. . . . . . . 

When Lloyd walked back out of the entrance of the factory he did so with smoke at his back and several cannisters of diesel in his arms. The yellow-tinged liquid sloshed around in their containers, occasionally spilling over onto his chest or the pavement below at his body’s jerky movements. It was one of those rare moments where he found himself glad to be without a sense of smell- neither the acrid chemical odor nor the choking smoke that now billowed from the factory were things he would miss. 

It took him a bit to reach the Market District, though markedly less time than it would have taken had he travelled by foot. The main road had been littered with crashed automobiles, but one or two had sat safely parked alongside the curb. It had been a simple thing to procure a set of keys from the purse of the woman who stood just beside one, her eyes unfocused as she mouthed to the tune of the mindless. After placing the cannisters in the side car he had taken his place in the main one and hit the gas, maneuvering around the wreckage as he drove.  
What would his boyfriend think of what he was doing now? Well, his ex-boyfriend. The thought sent an ache through him, one which had never grown dull no matter how much time had passed. There was a subtle hiss of radio static when he spoke.

“Sorry Ravey, I really did mean to come back.” 

He had spent so, so long doing everything in his power to return to his Raven. He still wanted to, more than anything in the world. But Lloyd was so, so tired of it all. And by now the other posthuman was surely either dead or had long-since forgotten about him, though he deeply hoped that it was the latter. Ever since he had discovered the doors to the carnival had been closed the nagging fear that his boyfriend too had met with a terrible fate had persisted in the back of his mind. He hoped he was out there, happy and living his best life. Certainly he deserved more than this horrid, clunky Pinocchio wannabe for a partner.

The tires squealed to a stop as he approached a street brimming with small shops. Lloyd exited the vehicle, once again scooping up the tanks of diesel in his arms. There was only one way out of this wretched narrative, and he was finally ready to take it. 

Marcus’ Mattresses was a place full of down and soft cotton and other easily flammable materials, so it was there that he began his dousing. By the time he was finished the floor and much of the bedding was covered in the oily substance, with trails leading into the nearest shops. Standing outside he could see the black smoke belching from where he had left, a sure sign that things were spreading there. Lloyd headed back inside and, after a moment, lay down on one of the mattresses. The sensation of softness, like most things, was lost to him in this body. But this was more for the symbolism of the thing- at long last, it was time for him to rest. This miserable existence would come to an end. Lloyd reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out the small box of cigarettes and lighter he had acquired alongside the keys. The fire leapt from the lighter eagerly, jumping from the cigarette to his oil-slick hand and further until it had roared to life around him as a thousand tongues of red and orange. And so as the flames of his victory leapt up around him, Lloyd once again knew oblivion.


End file.
